The moment I said "No," the entire theatre shook.
Not just the wood and stone, but the very silence Marybeth had wrapped around this cursed place. It cracked. It hissed. It breathed back.
Somewhere above us, I heard screams again—real screams. Ones with weight and terror and heat. The kind of scream that fights. The kind that remembers pain.
And Marybeth felt it.
I knew because her voice returned, angry and sharp, from every speaker and hollow wall:
> "You've broken rhythm. You've disobeyed the cue."
I turned to the boy, who stood behind me with wide, almost sad eyes.
> "Once you resist, she knows you're real again," the doll whispered for him.
I stared at the stitched tag on my chest: FINAL REHEARSAL – SCHEDULED.
"No," I said again, louder.
And this time, the tag burned off like it had never existed.
---
We sprinted up from the basement as dust rained from the ceiling. The dolls were no longer still. They writhed in the walls. Their mouths opened and closed like fish out of water. Strings curled down like tentacles, seeking fresh minds to bind.
As we reached the lobby of the theatre, I saw the old grand piano smash open on its own. The keys began playing themselves, manically pounding out a twisted version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."
> "The stage is calling you," the boy said, voice strained. "She's making the finale."
"I'm not hers," I growled.
But even as I said it, I felt it—threads I hadn't noticed before tightening around my ankles, my throat. My words grew quieter.
She was trying to pull me back into the act.
---
We fled through the side doors, across the town square, past buildings that had started weeping black water from their windows. The entire town was decaying around her unraveling script.
She had written Graywick into silence.
Now I was rewriting it in noise.
We reached the boy's hideout—a shattered church behind the theatre, its stained-glass windows long since burst.
There, on the altar, lay the source.
Not a relic. Not a grimoire.
A microphone.
Old. Silver. Still crackling.
The boy motioned to it.
> "She used that to begin the silence. You can end it with the same."
I stepped forward. My hand hovered above it.
But I hesitated.
What would I say?
The truth?
Her name?
A scream?
Then I realized:
It wasn't about what I said.
It was about taking back the choice to speak at all.
---
I grabbed the microphone.
And I exhaled.
For the first time since entering Graywick, I didn't try to remember the script.
I just remembered myself.
My name. My screams. My stolen voice.
The moment my breath touched the mic, the air shattered.
The strings snapped.
The puppets fell.
And from the sky above the town, a storm of sound rained down—raw, ugly, real. It came from every forgotten mouth—all the people Marybeth had silenced, now shouting their stolen truths.
The theatre cracked in two.
And Marybeth Glass descended.
Not with grandeur.
But with desperation.
---
She crawled from the bell tower, no longer wearing her mask. Her face was a mass of stitches. No eyes. Just mouths. All sewn shut.
Her hands reached for me.
> "Don't… let them hear… the ending…"
I stared back.
And I screamed.
My voice—my scream—finally mine again.
And in it was the noise of everyone she'd ever erased.
It struck her like thunder.
Her threads ignited.
And her stitched mouths burst open, one by one, letting out a flood of names:
> "Eloise Hart!" "Caleb Stone!" "Rowan Blake!"
Me.
She screamed once.
And then she was gone.
Not dust.
Just silence.
True silence.
The kind that asks for nothing.
---
The boy took my hand.
"Is it over?" I asked.
He shook his head.
> "She was only the first storyteller. There are others."
And in the theatre, the curtains lifted again.
But this time, it wasn't a doll on stage.
It was me.
Telling the truth.
And the town listened.